The director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority yesterday defended his agency’s use of security officers to keep an overflow crowd of residents out of a meeting where a controversial housing proposal was approved.

“It is not ideal to have a proceeding cocooned by police and security personnel,” Brian Golden told the Herald. “We want people to feel invited. But this was a large, loud crowd, and that had a certain intimidating atmosphere to it.”

Golden said he was asked “if accommodations could be made” to help some people leave Thursday’s meeting through another exit to avoid the hallway, where residents began chanting, “The people united will never be defeated,” after they were denied access because there were already about 80 people in the room — well beyond its seating capacity of 60.

“We welcome anybody to our proceedings as long as we’re not causing a safety hazard,” he said. “Ideally, it would be nice to have a really big room to always have our meetings, but we don’t have that.”

Asked why the agency didn’t hold the meeting in the City Council chambers, which is about three times the size, Golden said that would have meant moving the staff and equipment used to broadcast the proceedings online, on the local community-access channel and on the closed-circuit television set up for people in the hallway.

But Maria Christina Blanco, a Jamaica Plain resident and community organizer with City Life/Vida Urbana, called that assertion a “red herring,” saying the council chambers are already set up for most, if not all, of those things.

The BRA also knew well in advance that a large crowd planned to attend, Blanco said, because residents had been calling the agency to oppose the project at 3200 Washington St.

“It was telling in terms of who security (at the meeting) was letting in and who they weren’t,” she said. “It showed who they felt belonged there and who didn’t, who has the power to shape the city and who doesn’t.”

BRA spokesman Nick Martin, however, said the meeting was not a public hearing to solicit comment on the project. Opponents, Golden said, had ample opportunity to speak out at 21 community meetings on the proposal, which calls for 76 residential units, 18 — or 23.6 percent — of which would be affordable, more than twice the requisite ?13 percent.